Paterson native believed to be oldest New Jersey resident dies at 111

A sunny outlook, a career in the classroom and an occasional whiskey helped Paterson native Melva Radcliffe achieve a lofty status: supercentenarian.

Mrs. Radcliffe, believed to be the oldest New Jerseyan, died on Friday at 111 years, five months and 28 days.

“God doesn’t want me yet,” the former Melva Cadmus said at her 110th birthday party, answering a question she apparently had grown tired of: How do you explain your longevity?

Her closest relative, nephew John V. Campana Jr., has his own theories. For the first decade of her teaching career at Paterson’s School 13, Miss Cadmus, as she was known then, walked the several miles back and forth from her home on East 37th Street.

“That kept her in shape,” her nephew said.

Eventually she saved up enough to buy a Chevrolet.

Mrs. Radcliffe, who waited until she was 69 to marry, also had genetics on her side. She was the third of four siblings, all of whom lived past 90. Their mother, Ida Cadmus, lived to 92. Their father, Wilmer A. Cadmus, who was an acting mayor of Paterson in 1928, lived to 53.

Dr. Stephen Coles, executive director of the Gerontology Research Group at the University of California, Los Angeles, said “good genes” are the key to reaching the supercentenarian threshold of 110.

“These people chose their parents wisely,” he said. “To live a long and healthy life, even in spite of bad habits, you need those genes.”

The Gerontology Research Group, which validates the ages of supercentenarians worldwide, had 66 women and four men in its database as of Tuesday.

Mrs. Radcliffe was not in the database because the organization did not know of her. Coles said he hoped to be in touch with the family to begin validating her date of birth. Three forms of documentation are required, Coles said.

Campana said the birth certificate shows his aunt was born March 3, 1901.

None of the 70 living supercentenarians validated by the Gerontology Research Group are from New Jersey. The oldest is an American — Bessie Cooper of Monroe, Ga. She turned 116 on Aug. 26. The longest-living New Jerseyan, according to the Gerontology Research Group, was Alphaeus Cole of Jersey City. He lived to 112 years, 136 days, and died in 1988.

In addition to the validated supercentenarians, Coles guessed there are a couple of hundred other people in the world older than 110. “As documents trickle in, we validate one or two or three people a week, and as people die, they are taken off the list,” he said.

After Mrs. Radcliffe’s 110th birthday party at the Waterford Glen assisted living facility in Wall Township, a newspaper headline described her as the oldest resident of New Jersey. On her 111th birthday, a fellow Patersonian, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, described Mrs. Radcliffe as “the oldest recorded resident of my state” in a Congressional Record salute.

It’s unlikely anyone will dispute that. William Paterson University records show Melva Cadmus completed the two-year teaching program at the Paterson Normal School — the university’s predecessor — in 1919, when she was 17.

“Melva was extraordinary,” said Terry Ross, a WPU marketing and public relations staffer who befriended her. “She told me she graduated at the top of her class, and I believe her.”

Melva Cadmus taught mostly art and music to third-graders during 44 years in the Paterson school system.

“Fifty dollars a month. Six hundred dollars a year. Forty-eight children,” she reminisced to The Star-Ledger at her birthday party last year. “Teachers today have it easy.”

She retired in 1963, moved to Spring Lake, and in 1969 married a widower, James Radcliffe. He died six years later. Mrs. Radcliffe then married James’ brother, Hartley Radcliffe, another widower. He died in 1997 after a 10-year marriage.

Campana, 85, said his aunt knew the Radcliffe brothers when she was growing up in Paterson.

“Luckily, both husbands had the wherewithal to take her on trips because my aunt loved to travel — I don’t know how many cruises she was on,” Campana said. “Other than that, she had a lot of good friends, was very outgoing and had a nice social life at the Shore.

“And she liked her Canadian Club — on the rocks.”

Services will be on Friday at 10:30 a.m. at Vander Plaat Funeral Home in Wyckoff. Mrs. Radcliffe will be buried in the Cadmus family plot at Cedar Lawn Cemetery, Paterson.